Welcome to sneezefurs.org. We strive to be an active, open, and friendly community. Please stop by the forum called "I'm New Here" to introduce yourself and share why you joined. Posts in the "I'm New Here" forum are never removed, but other forums are subject to occasional pruning.

Additionally, the video gallery and archived topic subforums will not become available for you until you have made at least one post.

If you're seeing this, then the forum's upgrade was a success. We are now running SMF 2.0.11, and Aeva Media / AJAX Chat have both been tweaked in order to function. Congratulations to us! But what, you might be asking, was changed?

That's what I'm here to tell you. Sure, we got everything working the same as it was before, but it's likely you'll already have noticed that a few things look different! So here's the run-down.

Main Page

Login Improvements: Two improvements have been made to the forum's login. The first change is the Main Page login being much more useful. You can set a general time for staying logged in directly from the main page, with a default option of 'forever'. The other change is on the individual login page, where the order of options has changed. 'Always Stay Logged In' is now listed above the login duration, allowing for streamlined keyboard-only login.

Menu Button Improvements: Two improvements have been made to the menu buttons. The first improvement is to the order and location of the buttons. Some have been moved to be right-aligned, as well. This should allow for improved usage of the most-used buttons. The second improvement is that a few buttons have been renamed for clarity and consistency. Search has been renamed to Search Forum, Media has been renamed to Art Gallery, and Chat(#) has been renamed to Chat [ # ]. (Minus spaces lol)

Chat Preview: Formerly known as the Shoutbox, this page element has undergone substantial revisions in order to better promote the use of the Chat. The ability to send messages from the Shoutbox has been removed. In its place, there are now two prominent buttons. One will take you directly to the chat, and the other will take you to a help topic dedicated to teaching you about the features of the chat. (To be updated after launch!) In between these two buttons, you can now see a list of all users currently in the chat room. This is the same information as found at the bottom of the front page. As with other sensitive information, both the Shoutbox and the list of users in the chat room remain hidden to non-members.

Users Online / Users Logged in Today: Updates were made to better protect your privacy. Online Threshold reduced from 30 minutes to 20 minutes, and the list of today's members is now sorted Alphabetically. For more information on this, see http://sneezefurs.org/index.php?topic=2981.0

AJAX Chat

UI Improvements, Existing: A few improvements have been made to existing features. The five graphical buttons on the bottom right have been replaced with text buttons. When they are active, they are lit up. When they are turned off, they are faded. Outside of that, their actual functions have remained unchanged. Additionally, the Channel: list has been expanded so that it is more legible, and (Default) has been added to the current default channel.

UI Improvements, New: Two new features have been added. One was part of the default chat package's update. Private messages are now a different color from normal messages. I think the current colors are acceptable, but if you find them hard to read, let me know, but be sure to suggest similar alternatives. The other new feature is that there is now a Chat Logs button (found where Logout originally was); this is only available to members with at least 10 posts. Logout is now found on the right side of that line.

Feature Changes: Other than the ability to see a Chat Logs button at greater than 9 posts, there's a few other changes to features. First, image tags and color tags have been removed for most users. This capability has been granted specifically to Benevolent Dragons in order to make the features a little more special. You will not see these buttons unless you can utilize the feature. The ability to change your nickname in the chat has also been made a feature that's only available to Benevolent Dragons. Lastly, private rooms have been enabled, but again this feature is only available to Benevolent Dragons. Any Benevolent Dragon can create a private room, and can then invite any member into that room.

Command Help Rewrite: The last change to Chat is that the in-chat Help panel is now much more coherent and informative in describing the available chat commands. It's been re-ordered and a few items have been clarified.

Art Gallery

Home UI Changes: The Home screen has two changes. First is that the number of items in each section has been increased by 5. The other is that the quick-jump items have been centered.

Image Navigation: Something I've been wanting to have changed for quite a while. Now, when you click the thumbnail for an image, it will take you to the image info page. Previously, the image info page was only accessible when clicking the image title. To access the stand-alone image, you will now want to select 'Download' on the image info page.

Image Info Page: Two changes to the image info page. The first is that the custom tags now appear above the image's technical data, improving visibility. The second is that the Comment box is no longer collapsed when visiting the page. In fact, it no longer can collapse. This should hopefully lead to more comments on uploaded images.

Known Bugs - AJAX Chat:

(The only currently known bugs are in relation to AJAX Chat, but if you notice something else, post a reply and we'll look into it.)

-The first is one that's been around since forever. If you join an empty chat, you will likely see someone leave immediately after you join. They may even show up in the Users in Channel pane. This happens because the chat is not 'alive' after the last person leaves to process the exit message they generated. This may not be fixable, but we will be looking into possible solutions. In the mean time, realize that people aren't snubbing you or running from you when that happens!

-The second bug is similar, but more likely to be fixable. If the chat is empty, the Chat Preview currently is not functioning properly. We will work to restore the preview's functionality when encountering an empty chat room. **Edit** This bug does not seem to be currently happening, but if you happen to notice this in the future, please let us know asap!

-An unusual bug that happened once, I saw myself in the chat shortly after visiting the site, even though I was not actually in the chat. If you see yourself inside the chat, and you have not been there recently, again, let us know.

-During development we've encountered a lot of "Error 500" errors. If these persist after the transition to live, then you guessed it, let us know!

-Alternate color themes are currently disabled. If you want a specific color scheme, you'll have to help us design it, but we'll be glad to add in more themes.

Planned Features

AJAX Chat: Additional tweaks to improve performance, and investigation into some of the current bugs.

Art Gallery: Big plans are on the tables for the Art Gallery, including improvements to the abilities of the Search feature, an option to disable/enable Adult Content on the Home page, and a complete overhaul of the Rating system which may end up including a method of favoriting images!

Other: Other items on the list outside of actual content updates are a technical overhaul for the video gallery, possible HTTPS support, and improved User-Group badges.

If there's anything I may have missed here, please let us know. If you have any feature suggestions or if something is broken or not working as intended, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease let us know. I hope everyone enjoys the upgrade to Sneezefurs and the return of the Chat!